The Sims 3 Coming To Consoles This Autumn

The Sims has been a very, very successful series over the years. It is also, perhaps, the franchise with the largest female audience, taking into account every videogame franchise in existence, which alone gives it an important place in the industry. It should come as little surprise, then, that Electronic Arts are bringing it to consoles this year with a boat-load of new features.

One of the new features being included in the console iterations is what EA are calling “Karma Powers.” You can bless your Sims with “instant beauty” or curse them with an “epic fail.” It’s a matter of luck, and using karma too often could come back to bite you in the butt at any point. Just a thought: it’s interesting to see that console gamers are essentially being provided with an “instant entertainment” option.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will be able to connect to Facebook and download content from other players over the consoles’ respective online services. The Wii version, on the other hand, has an added exclusive beach town with entirely new characters and career options. And finally, EA promise the DS version will be a proper — albeit scaled down to controlling a single family — simulation worthy of the Sims name, complete with touchscreen-integration for building houses and Sims.